Superintendent discusses the well-being of students and families, and schools’ options moving forward

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Thursday, May 7, 2020 | 2 a.m.

In March, the Clark County School District found itself in an unenviable position, with more than 300 campuses closed and more than 300,000 students staying at home.

The country’s fifth-largest school district quickly addressed one key consequence of the shutdown, partnering with Three Square Food Bank to set up stations and protocols for distributing free meals to students in need. We checked in with Superintendent Jesús Jara to find out how he feels CCSD’s distance learning efforts are going, and to learn more about the district’s various contingency plans going forward.

“We are not going to be perfect and we are going to make mistakes,” he said, “but our decisions are based on what I feel is going to be best for our students, families and employees.”

His responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Of what accomplishment during the shutdown are you most proud? We moved from one platform of instruction to a completely new model in a matter of weeks. We have provided more than 80,000 Chromebooks to our students without a device at home, so they can access online distance education opportunities.

Additionally, by the end of this week, CCSD will have provided students with roughly 2 million meals. Ensuring our students are provided with nutritious meals during these unprecedented times is crucial, and our team has done tremendous work to support our families.

Had the governor not extended school closures—through the end of the school year—by April 30, were you prepared to send kids back to school on May 1, or would you have made the same announcement yourself? CCSD has been flexible working with the unknown and had plans in place on whether school would resume May 1, May 15 or, as is now the case, to return in August for the new school year. Our team remains ready to provide an education to our 320,000 students. We have placed the safety of our communities and the expert advice of our health professionals at the center of our decisions.

How concerned are you that students’ time away from the classroom could have long-term effects, both educationally and socially? We know that students traditionally experience what is known as “the summer slide” after being away from school for three months. My concern is that students, especially those who face access challenges, will fall further behind.

A recent study by Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) has already established that the “COVID slide” will have impacts on student achievement. … Our third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students will feel the largest impact, with research indicating a steep decline in both reading and math gains during this shutdown.

Our goal is to provide summer school virtually for our students, as well as Extended School Year. We will do what is possible, during the summer and at the beginning of the next school year, to ensure students receive the support to achieve academically and get where they need to. However, we are going to need a lot of support to make this happen, and I am calling for the community to help us.

We know that COVID-19 has created a lot of stress for our families. We are concerned for the physical and mental well-being of our students. Counselors, school psychologists and social workers are currently engaged with our students. We know we don’t have enough of them to support our 320,000 students, and this is another area where investment is necessary.

Has your office begun working on contingency plans in case school does not resume for fall 2020 or even for spring 2021? If so, what might some of those possibilities look like? We all hope that by August, our efforts focus on the typical operations of schools with enhancements learned through distance education. However, we will be ready for our students, parents and educators with alternative operations, should conditions demand.

Alternative operations may include a blended learning approach, which includes students engaging in a combination of face-to-face and digital instruction.

Aside from providing equitable access to technology at the student level, how prepared would CCSD be to host an all-online semester or academic year, particularly its teachers, most of whom have not been trained to do so? We are working to improve the skill set of our educators to implement distance education should the need continue for longer periods or resurface in the future. We are providing virtual professional learning in May 2020 to assist teachers with providing instruction for all learners through distance education. We will be expanding this professional learning during the summer to ramp up educators’ readiness levels for August 2020.

Two-shift school days, every-other-week school schedules and limiting class size have all been mentioned by other districts as potential ways to bring social distancing to campuses. What are your thoughts on those, and how realistic might they be for CCSD? My team is already working on … “alternative operations” should “conditions demand” that for the 2020-2021 school year. Some things we are considering are staggered bell times and attendance, blended learning and new procedures for lunch, recess, activities and hallways.

How much has being such a large school district made it difficult to pivot quickly and adjust to the shutdown, and how do you now view calls to break up CCSD into smaller districts, given the uncertain nature of these times? It is not a matter of the size but the structure. Due to the [Assembly Bill] 469 reorganization, for example, a lot of decisions on technology acquisition were made at the school level. Although the Central Office had an inventory to deploy in response to COVID-19 and distance learning, we found some schools were completely equipped at a 1:1 device/student ratio, while others had no technology available. While we understand some of the decisions are based on particular school needs, these kinds of uncentralized decisions have created unintended inconsistencies and inequalities.

With the benefit of hindsight, what could the district have done differently to better serve its students, parents, teachers and administrators? It would have been ideal to have a well-established and funded distance learning plan. Other districts across the nation have taken decades to move toward effective blended or online learning. That had not been the priority for CCSD, as other emerging needs took center stage.

Distance learning takes investment of time and resources to create the proper curricular opportunities, deploy the needed technology, and train teachers and students to work with distance learning platforms. This is something that, knowing what we know today, would have certainly helped us.